Broken Pipe Leads to Timber Creek Evacuation

Timber Creek students were evacuated during 5th Period Monday after a water pipe was broken in the main hallway.

Principal Todd Tunnell says the pipe underneath the staircase connecting main and the second floor of North Hall was broken unintentionally.

“The water has been cleaned up and things should return to normal soon,” Tunnell said in an e-mail to staff.

After an interview with Mr. Garza, an administrator, it became obvious that the school will be going undergoing certain precautions such as being on constant fire-watch.

“It was an unfortunate student act,” says Mr. Garza and he says that administration will be monitoring students more thoroughly.

KISD spokeswoman Nicole McCollum told NBC 5 that the pipe was burst when a student tried to do pull-ups on the sprinkler system.

The maintenance of the pipes and other similar systems undergo consistent maintenance checks, so the stability of the pipe was less of a problem.

Garza also mentioned the incredible job done by the custodian staff.

“Within two minutes, the leak has gotten to it’s prime, and because of such high pressure, it spread to the second floor,” he says, “administrators had to act extremely quickly. The whole situation was a matter of 10-15 minutes.”

Photos and videos showed inky black water coming from the pipe. The water is believed to be from the fire suppression system, which explains the odor and color of the liquid. The alarms were triggered by the smell of the chemicals in the water, which contains fire retardant material.

A photo from Talon reporter Gracy Whitaker shows custodial staff cleaning up the broken pipe on June 1, 2015.

Custodial staffers already had much of the water cleaned and removed by the end of 6th Period, allowing students to resume the regular schedule starting at 1:20 p.m. All of the affected areas should be available for student use by Tuesday.